ship is equipped with lasers, missiles, and cannons. The lasers just work off of batteries. There are other engineers that assist in the reloading of missiles. Since I’m just a corporal, I load the rail charges; they’re just twelve kilogram rods of pure iron. The rail cannons magnetically charge them, and then polarize the rails and away the slugs go. They’re superfast too, the slugs never touch the rails because of the magnetic fields, and in space there is no air resistance. The slugs have nothing to slow them down. They aren’t quite as fast as the lasers, but they pack a much bigger punch. Anyways, the belts for the rail cannons hold one hundred slugs at a time, but they can fire very quickly so we have to reload quickly. The slugs are in the magazine behind you, just open that door.”
Jesse saw the compartment that Max was pointing to and opened it, revealing a small room that contained nothing but shiny cylinders.
“Keep the door open by latching the catch to that panel. One of us stays inside the compartment and hands slugs to the other one, which job do you want to do?”
“I will stay in here and hand slugs to you.”
“Ok then, start handing them to me one at a time. You can keep the end of the belt open to load; the system will automatically feed the slugs to the gun.”
There were two rail cannons at their station and nobody else was in the room with them.
“Who fires the cannons?”
“The gunners are in the command post, they fire the guns remotely. Normally there would be other people in here to load both cannons, but you and I are going to have to reload both guns. Fortunately, both belts are fully loaded right now, so our job doesn’t start until we begin firing.”
The words were barely out of Max’s mouth when the rail cannons started to fire.
“Quick, start handing me slugs!”
Jesse went to work, methodically handing Max slug after slug as they labored to keep the rail cannons fed. Just as quickly as they started firing though, they stopped. Jesse could feel the floor of the ship shift.
“We’re turning about.”
The intercom burst back to life, “The Orleans called in reinforcements before it was destroyed that has just arrived. It seems to be a battleship. We are maneuvering to get away from this ambush and head back to Uriah.”
“Keep handing me slugs, we have to keep the belts full in case we get in another firefight.”
“Did the Orleans ever fire at us? I didn’t feel any impacts.”
“I don’t think so, but I don’t know about the battleship that the captain was talking about either.”
The two of them worked quietly for a few minutes, reloading the rail cannons in preparation for the next round. Jesse was starting to think that they might have made it out when the first shocks reverberated through the ship. The lights were already red from being at battle stations, but now a klaxon wailed. Somewhere in the ship the hull had been breached by a salvo from this new Confederate ship. The rail cannons suddenly came to life and fired much too fast for Max and Jesse to keep up. Jesse couldn’t keep up or differentiate between the shock of the cannons firing and the impacts from the other ship, but he sensed that the Longleaf was losing.
The doors to the rail cannon compartment had been closed since the two of them entered the room. Try as they might, the rail cannons ran out of ammunition two minutes after they began firing. Without the rail cannons firing, Jesse could hear and feel the ship’s movements better. The Longleaf was still being battered by the enemy ship, but he could not hear the Longleaf firing. Even after they had loaded a few more rounds into the rail cannon’s belts, the guns were still silent.
“That is not good. They must have hit the command deck.”
Jesse continued to hustle as fast as he could to hand Max the slugs. By the time they had completely reloaded the belts, there were no more shocks running through the ship.
“What has happened?” whispered Jesse.
“I don’t know. We’re not supposed to leave our stations during combat, it’s a capital punishment. We’re not supposed to get on the intercom either.”
“So we just wait here?”
“Yeah, until somebody tells us what to do”
So they waited, in the red darkness with the klaxon still flashing, but mercifully silent. It seemed like an eternity, but they waited. In reality it was less than half an hour before Roxanne’s voice came over the intercom.
“This is Chief Engineer Roxanne; I have assumed control of the NOS Longleaf. The command deck was hit by enemy forces and opened to space. Everybody there is presumed dead. Our course was already set before that happened, which allowed us to escape the Confederates. I am working to establish control over the ship. Everybody can leave their battle stations and start repairs. We’re flying blind here so stay alert. I want all remaining weapons fully loaded and ready to go.”
The intercom clicked off and the lights went from red to white.
“How is she going to get control of the ship if the command deck was destroyed?”
“The engineering bay is the real nexus; she can tap into the controls from there. But it is not meant to function as the command deck, so it’s not automatic. It doesn’t have the screens and controls that the command deck has either. If we get caught by the Confederates, then were done for.”
“Why can’t we get on the command deck?”
“Didn’t you hear? It was hit by the confederates and opened to space.”
“So, we can wear suits.”
“Alright, let’s go to the engineering bay and tell Roxanne.”
It took several routes to get to the engineering bay. The damage to the Longleaf was extensive, but eventually, they made their way there. As Jesse predicted, Roxanne was furiously trying to tap into the ships controls. Max stepped up and cleared his voice.
“Chief Engineer Roxanne, Jesse and I have an idea.”
“Out with it, quickly”
“We can put on suits and continue to operate the Longleaf from the command deck.”
“I don’t know what kind of damage the command deck sustained.”
“Well, we can go look.”
“Alright go, and radio in with what you find.”
With fresh orders, Max and Jesse headed to the prow where the command deck was situated. At a portside airlock, they stopped and donned suits. Then they stepped into the airlock and cycled the atmosphere out of the compartment. The outer doors opened automatically once the air was gone and just like that, the two of them were outside the ship.
Looking around himself, Jess could see the damage that the Confederates did to the Longleaf. It was even worse than the first round; the Gauss ring was nowhere to be found. Max tugged on Jesse’s sleeve and indicated the front of the ship. Nodding his head, Jesse began the slow work of crawling to the front of the ship.
The hole opened by confederate gunfire was large enough for them to fit through. The fissure was along the starbord side of the ship and everything inside on the port side was destroyed. The commander’s chair was untouched though, so Max activated his radio.
“Chief Engineer Roxanne, this is Corporal Max, we have reached the command deck.”
“Tell me what you see.”
“There is nobody in here; I think they were all sucked out. The entire port side of the deck has been destroyed, but the starboard side and the command chair are intact. I believe we can control the ship from here.”
“That is the first bit of good news I have heard since we attacked the Orleans. Get in the chair and chart a new course towards the Uriah station. Also, are any of the gunnery stations still active?”
“The ones on the port side are, some of the screens are red though.”
“That is because the guns are inactive; they must have been damaged in the firefight. Tell Jesse to reroute the controls to guns that are active. Then put the guns on defensive fire.”
“Yes ma’am. Did you get that Jesse?”
“Yes”
&nb
sp; “Do you know how to do that?”
“I see an option on this station to switch guns.”
“Yeah, just hit that button. It will rotate through gun platforms, when a platform turns green then leave it and go to the next station.”
“Gotcha”
Jesse started moving through the gunnery stations, finding active platforms and setting them to defensive fire option. Meanwhile, Max was sitting in the commander’s chair, trying to set a new course.
“Hey Jesse, you don’t happen to know the coordinates of Uriah do you?”
“Yes I do” Jesse walked over to Max and entered the XYZ coordinates of Uriah.
“Awesome, the navigation hologram is offline. I couldn’t pinpoint the station.” Changing the channel on his radio, Max started talking to Roxanne.
“Chief, I’ve changed our course and Jesse has the remaining weapon platforms on the defensive fire setting.”
“Good work you two. I want you to stay there in case we need to change something.”
“Yes ma’am”
Max switched his radio back to the local channel with Jesse.
“Roxanne says we did good, but to stay here.”
“Ok”
“At least we can see what is going on here. That display to my right is an outline of the ship. All those red areas are damaged, that is most of the ship.”
Jesse whistled, “I don’t think we can fix that at Uriah.”
“No, there are specialized parts there that we don’t keep spares of.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Probably jump to a New Order dock and get an over haul.”
“But the Uriah helped you, if the Confederates